


longing

by koganewest



Series: Keith Genuary [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Future, Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt No Comfort, Keith & Krolia (Voltron) on the Space Whale, Keith (Voltron) Angst, Lonely Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 10:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17486384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koganewest/pseuds/koganewest
Summary: Keith talks with Acxa about missing the paladins.





	longing

**Author's Note:**

> for keith genuary day 21: acxa

The flash hits him without warning while he and Krolia are sleeping. 

Keith hadn’t even thought it possible to experience such a thing while asleep, but he finds himself watching what could only be the future: his hair is much longer, and he’s speaking to the one of Lotor’s generals. They’re unloading supplies from a unfamiliar ship while engaged in friendly conversation, but that isn’t what strikes Keith as the oddest part of the scenario.

The strangest part about the whole situation is that Keith is talking about the other paladins in a way that seems detached, like he’s been isolated from them. 

“The last time I spoke to Hunk,” Keith hears his own voice say to the Galra girl at his side, pausing to grunt while he picks up what looks like a heavy box. “The last time I talked to him was nearly six movements ago. And Lance — I know he’s hurting, but he won’t talk to me about it. It sucks because I know we could help each other.”

It’s easy for Keith to recognize his own emotions, despite the indecipherable amount of time that clearly passes between the two of them. His face betrays nothing, as does his voice, but his demeanor is shown through his posture. Resignation weighs down his shoulders and slows his every move, and that’s how Keith knows that his future self is extremely distraught. He watches himself sigh before gathering his thoughts once again. 

“Pidge calls me every once in a while, but it’s never just to _talk_ ,” Keith complains to the Galra girl still unloading packages next to him, who does not respond. In fact, she barely shows that she heard Keith.

This, surprisingly, doesn’t stop Keith from talking.

“And Shiro — god, I miss him,” he says, tone full of heavy despondency. “He’s officially retired, so he has no reason to call me, and it _sucks_ , Acxa. I just— I haven’t seen him in so long. It feels like I’ve lost him all over again.”

Future-Keith turns to the Galra he recognizes as Lotor’s general — Acxa, according to himself — and now he can fully see his own face and the extent to his emotion. He looks absolutely broken; his heart breaks to pieces looking at himself. Is this really what happens in the future? Is this really how his life plays out, after all they’d been through together? Is this the fate he’s doomed to live? Does he remain this lonely forever? 

“Why don’t you return to Earth to visit?” Acxa questions him, and future-Keith visibly deflates, clearly disapproving of the idea.

“Because the celebration day of Allura isn’t for a while,” he explains, tone full of dejection. Acxa regards him with pity, now, for the first time during the entire conversation. Keith briefly wonders how the two became so close, before his thoughts are interrupted by his future-self. “That’s the only time they ever make an effort to see me.”

“Why don’t you go anyway for an unplanned visit? Would they not take you in?” Acxa suggests helpfully, but it only makes Keith shrug, turn his back to her, draw his shoulders in defensively.

Keith sees right through his own actions immediately: he thinks he isn’t wanted.

He thinks the other paladins don’t want to see him, which is probably another big reason he’s on this strange unrecognizable planet, rather than Earth, when the war is seemingly over. Though Keith is glad that his entire future isn’t consumed by war, he almost wished it was — if it meant staying around the paladins. He didn’t know if he wanted to see the end of all the fighting if he was only rewarded with a lifetime of loneliness. 

Keith knows that his future self is experiencing the same tsunami of emotion he felt when he was younger, back before Voltron, back before Shiro and the Garrison, when his father had just died and left him with absolutely no one. 

God, Keith does not want to feel that again. 

He can’t help but harbor some resentment for his team. Were they mad about him leaving Voltron? Did they get rid of him because he left them? Regardless, he didn’t think he deserved to be exiled to some planet after the war. He thought they were a _team,_ a _family,_ but maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was wrong about everything.

He watches himself continue to unload boxes from the ship, while speaking candidly to Acxa about his future issue. He’s more surprised by how open he is with her than he’s surprised by his future. He’d always guessed that they’d leave him and move on, but he didn’t think it’d be so soon. Judging by the state of the planet he’s on, the war has _just barely ended_ , yet his team had already left him for dead. 

They don’t really care about each other, he decides. They have no reason to stick together after the war, and absolutely nothing will change that.

* * *

When the white light brings him from the future, back to the Space Whale once more, there's a debilitating burning in his chest.

* * *

That same burning persists when he’s lost with his team in space, when he drives himself crazy, when he screams at all of them for what he saw in his visions on the whale. He knows his words won’t change anything, no matter what he says because he can’t change the future, but he screams anyway — just in case. 

“Are we even really _friends?_ Is there anything holding us together besides some messed up series of coincidences? I mean, what are we — some chosen saviors? Do you really believe that?!"

Behind every word is a silent _I need you, please don’t leave, please don’t abandon me, please_.

* * *

(In the end, though, nothing changes.)

(He still ends up on the strange planet with Acxa. He still ends up reluctant to go back to Earth uninvited. He still ends up thinking they don’t want him back there.)

(He still ends up alone.)

**Author's Note:**

> can i do a genuary prompt without angst?  
> (the answer is no)
> 
> -lily


End file.
